Chapter 524 — Making Offerings to the Ancestral Spirits in the Hall of Human Emperors
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
Shen Mu examined the gravestones one by one. Many graves bore no inscription at all—presumably because those who set the stones did not know the names of the dead. These graves paved a road leading to the Hall of Human Emperors in the mist.
How long it took, he could not say, but at last Shen Mu drew near the Hall of Human Emperors, and a thatched hut came into view. In the hut a skeleton sat cross-legged, its head bowed, and beside it a stone tablet had toppled before him.
Though only bones remained, one could still tell that in life he had been stalwart, with thick, knotted joints in both hands—surely skilled in seal-arts, palm-arts, and fist-arts.
Shen Mu brushed the dust from the tablet, and was struck dumb. On the tablet was written: Qi Kang, Human Emperor. Feeling that in this life he had achieved nothing, he had no face to erect a stele, no face to be buried, no face to meet his ancestors. He was buried in this thatched hut, his dry bones unentombed. Shen Mu opened the chest and took out candles, paper money, and offerings.
Reverently he lit incense and made sacrifice to Human Emperor Qi Kang.
He stepped out of the hut, and then saw that beside it stood another hut. Within were several severed hands and feet, and another toppled stone tablet.
On the tablet was only one character, Su. The character had been written with a broken sword, left half-finished, the broken sword still thrust into the stone; the inscription was never completed.
Shen Mu looked at the severed hands and feet; the stumps bore the wounds of swords. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he made obeisance with all reverence. "Village Elder. .
. " He knew that when the Village Elder came here, he had meant to end his life on the spot; it was only because the Human Emperor Seal had not yet been passed on that he could not die.
So he had buried his severed hands and feet here.
He did not even dare write his own name, for at that time he had left no inheritance behind. Shen Mu came to the third hut. Here too was a skeleton, short and squat of build—that was Human Emperor Yi Shan.
The gravestone likewise bore only a few brief lines.
Human Emperor Yi Shan, defeated by the hand of Heaven Above, no face to be buried and meet his honored master; those who come after need not pay me homage. Shen Mu came to the fourth hut.
Again a skeleton, the bones of one hand cradling a flower basket.
Human Emperor Lan Po, who achieved nothing in all his life, ashamed before his master's teachings.
.
.
Shen Mu entered hut after hut, making offerings at each, witnessing the twenty thousand years of the Hall of Human Emperors' history. He had already seen these Human Emperors in Fengdu: they beat and cursed their masters, utterly at odds with them. But here, in the thatched huts of the Hall of Human Emperors, Shen Mu saw their reverence for their honored masters, and their remorse for their own failures. Shen Mu came before the Hall of Human Emperors, and saw a figure standing there with its back to him.